Saturday, August 19, 2006

Typhoon Report

At least 1,800 people have been killed in severe flooding in China this year, following a series of devastating typhoons and tropical storms. Most recently, Typhoon Saomai – the worst to hit China’s mainland in half a century – claimed more than 200 lives and destroyed or damaged over 432,000 homes and around 270,000 hectares of farmland in south-east China.In early August, Typhoon Papiroon killed around 80 people, while Tropical Storm Bilis left more than 600 dead in mid-July....

This year’s storms have been unusually frequent and powerful, bringing renewed misery to rural families who are already struggling to scrape by.

Meanwhile, as some areas of China are hit by more typhoons and the resulting floods, other areas are suffering from intense drought, which experts say is another by-product of global warming.

A 370-year-old castle in East China dating back to Ming Dynasty has collapsed after being hit by floods triggered by three typhoons over the past three months.

Nine houses in the Caipu Castle, in Yunxiao County of Fujian province, collapsed after being soaked in flood for weeks while more than 200 square metres of the outer wall crumbled, a county cultural official said.

"Fortunately nobody was injured or killed," curator of the county museum, Tang Yuxian said.

The moat has often flooded the castle since mid-May when Typhoon Chanchu slashed Southern and Eastern China, followed by Bilis and Kaemi that set off flood and landslides to kill hundreds of people.

There are more than 200 families living in the castle.

The Caipu Castle was built in 1636 and was the only round castle made of a mixture of lime, clay and sand that still exists in Fujian, Xinhua news agency quoted Tang as saying.

July and August are regarded as the height of the floods season in East Asia. Over the past eight weeks, large-scale flooding and a series of typhoons have affected China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Japan and the Republic of Korea. In DPRK, 14-15 July floods triggered by a typhoon affected a total of eight counties in South Pyongan, North Hwanghae, Kangwon and South Hamgyong provinces.

According to the latest official figures, floods during the second week of July killed 151 people. Having now located many who were missing, the number of missing has been reduced from 127, as reported on 25 July, to 29 people. Rains precipitated landslides and flash floods that totally or partially destroyed 23,400 houses and rendered more than 16,960 families homeless, causing extensive damage to crops and infrastructure.

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For the Austrailia season of Tropical Cyclones - they also had a particularly bad year with 2 category 5s, and 3 category 4s (by their scale). "Monica was the strongest tropical cyclone on record to affect the Northern Territory (Australian Bureau of Meteorology)".

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About

This blog has become a place where I post articles that I find related to global warming - causes and effects, as well as a few other topics - related or not.

Jellyfish are like poster-boys of global warming changes - jellyfish are one species of animal that are doing very well. The increased acidity of the oceans, warmer waters, the decrease in predators as fish and other wildlife decline have all favored jellyfish. They seem to thrive on the fertilizers that people have been washing into the seas. Most animals do not.

I also like to post discoveries - especially discoveries that are being made out in space as people are able to see farther and farther galaxies and nebulas and supernovas. Even though I don't think that people will ever go live any of those places - I just like knowing that they are out there. It's part of keeping in mind that the earth and it's inhabitants are such a small part of what is going on in the universe.

I have another blog with posts on art and artists - it's called M'S IMPRESSIONS.